St. Brigid's Cross
Saughart, Co. Louth, Ireland
Probably reached Ireland between 2nd century B.C.E and 2nd century C.E.
-present
woven straw
not from any particular collection, crafts made in Ireland

"Go down on your knees,
do homage, and let blessed Brigid enter the house"

St. Brigid's crosses consist
of rushes woven into a swastica-like ornament, reminiscent of a number of designs
found in Celtic art both ancient and modern. In their construction they are
very much like the whirligigs found on painted pottery or the swasticas in the
few textiles that exist from Celtic burial sites. A typical cross consists of
a central square with four spokes, one protruding from each corner of the square
in an opposing direction. Crosses of this type are found in Ireland to this
day although the feast day customs with which they were associated mostly died
out in the 19th century.

On the eve of St. Brigid's
Feast,( Imbolc) traditionally, young boys called brideoga or biddies would carry
a churndash( the post used for churning butter) dressed as a woman, an effigy
of St. Brigid, and ask door to door for gifts or alms. O Cathasaigh notes that
the churndash is symbolic of milking which has relevance both to the saint,
who attended to a dairy, and to the festival of Imbolc .In addition to begging
for alms, the brideoga would leave bundles of straw and rushes outside the doors
at homes. At nightfall young girls would pick them up and after asking to be
admitted in the name of the saint, weave into crosses. It is likely that the
brideoga were once actually virgins from the community. Oftentimes they would
even bear the name of the goddess/saint. Both Brigid the saint and the goddess
were renowned as protectors of virgins. After traditional prayers and a meal,
crosses would then be placed under the eaves in the house or in outhouses. Before
they were placed in the thatch, however, the crosses would sometimes be blessed
with holy water, a ritual with connotations simultaneously Christian and Pagan.

Leftover materials from
the making of crosses were also used in a ritualized manner. They would often
be woven into a girdle called a crios, ties for cattle, and sometimes into a
mattress for the saint. Just as cattle were traditionally led through holy lakes
or doused in water from Brigidís well, they were often led through the uplifted
arches of these girdles. The creation of a mattress for the saint also finds
its parallel in folk traditions associated with holy wells. At certain wells,
Cruach Patrick in particular, there are flat rocks in the shape of a bed or
mattress that supposedly pilgrims could lay upon to counter infertility or to
assure an easy birth. These crafts of Brigidís feast day were not only believed
to have curative powers and to counter barrenness, but to protect the family
and animals from natural calamities, especially lighting and fire. In the Tuatha
de Danaan, Brigid is a life-giving goddess but is also attributed with fire,
both in its destructive uses and in metalwork.

These crosses are important
to the study of Brigidís evolution from goddess to the saintly daughter of a
druid and a slave because they allude in so many ways to the questionable status
of her Christian origins. Most obvious are the links to cattle, life-giving,
and death, although the design itself may suggest vestiges of solar-symbolism.
There seems to be little argument among scholars that even if an actual holy
woman named Brigid existed, in fact over fifteen were recorded , that her life
and miracles are Christian revisions of pre-established beliefs. There are too
many coincidences in the life of the saint, the mythology of the goddess, and
strangely similar festivals to believe otherwise.